THE YEAR IN REVIEW This marks the 7th year where I am writing a blog near the end of the year summing up the past year. It contains several “Top 5” barbecue related lists from prior years: “Top 5 Cooks”, “Top 5 Things I’ve Learned”, “The Top 5 Mistakes Made”, and a list of “Top 5 Goals for the New Year”. In 2009 I made a change to the format and added a new list. As I have gotten better at this hobby, I was lucky enough to have made some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Since these items were also some of my favorite foods, they would automatically have to be listed as the Top 5 cooks this year. There were a lot of other great meals I made that deserved so acknowledgment. So the category I added in 2009 for “Top 5 New Items Cooked” is now a permanent item. It is intended for recipes using new foods or new techniques that turned out great. In 2010I added the category: “Top 5 Grilling/Smoking Related Events”. I think it will also be a permanent category but it will have a slightly different focus once again in 2012. I was not able to get out and attend and festivals, but I will list some items that were important to my pursuit of this hobby. Since I’ve been doing many more multi-item cooks where I grilled or smoked the entire meal, including dessert. the new 2011 category for “Top 5 Sides & Desserts” is also permanent. This year I got an iPad and between my iPad and iPhone I’ve become quite reliant of several apps to help with my cooking. So this year I am adding a new category for “Top 5 iPad/iPhone apps. Read More...

The other day while making a flank steak, I made an interesting observation about cooking it by time versus by temperature. This blog entry will discuss how the flank steak would've turned out if I’d cooked it by time versus by temperature. What happened at the very ed of the cook really surprised me and may surprise you too. It is also making me think I should use a remote read temperature probe even more than I already do. Read More...

This year my nephew's graduation party has taken precedence over Father's Day. Normally on Father's Day I make my dad a meal on the grill of his choosing, and the pictures often appeared here on the site. This year where I won't have pictures of the Father's Day meal, I thought I might do a blog where I reminisce about my memories of me and my dad as it relates to grilling. Now it may be of zero interest to anybody but me, and possibly other members of my immediate family. But there's always a chance that some others will get a kick out of memories of the "bad" old days of grilling. The days where lighter fluid was king and the brazier style charcoal grill was a household staple. Read More...

This blog entry is going to be about another use it I found for my flattop grill grate for my gas grill. One of the things that I liked about my grill is it has modular accessories that are made to replace one or more of the grill grates. One of those accessories is a flattop grill grate. I must admit when I first bought the grill, I didn't give the flat top grate much use. But in the last few years I've found many different uses for it. This latest use case is my favorite: Toasting New England style hot dog buns. Read More...

This blog entry will describe Day 2 of my recent BEEF WELLINGTON cook. When we left off at the end of Day 1 (see BEEF WELLINGTON-DAY 1), the beef tenderloin had been seared and wrapped in prosciutto coated with the duxelle (mushroom, shallot, garlic, thyme paste) and held together with a sheet of plastic wrap. The plastic wrap had aided in initially wrapping the meat and also helped give the roast a cylindrical shape while it cooled and firmed up in the fridge. The Green Peppercorn Sauce had also spent the night in the fridge and all that was left for it was to be gently reheated on the stove. Then just before serving I’d add in the brined green peppercorns (minus the brine). Originally the recipe was intended to be made in one day. In reading the recipe comments section, I’d found that many folks left the plastic wrapped roast stay in the fridge overnight together with the peppercorn sauce. They finished it off the next day. This made the recipe a lot more predictable on the day you actually wished to serve it. The time variables from 3 separate reductions all occurred on the first day, when you weren't trying to coordinate an end time with the rest of the meal. Day 2 should prove to be rather predictable, or so I thought. I was in for a big surprise, but I’ll save that for the proper time. Read More...

This first blog entry starting the new year in 2012 is about how I ended my year in 2011: Making Beef Wellington on the grill. For whatever reason I’d decided about two years ago that I wanted to make Beef Wellington. There was something about meat and puff pastry in the same dish that intrigued me. Making it in the oven had zero appeal to me though, but somehow the idea of doing it on the grill was intriguing. I actually put it in my year end blog entry LOOKING BACK, LOOKING AHEAD 2010, where I listed it as one of the 5 new things I would like to make in 2011. It was looking like I wouldn’t make that goal in 2011. But then I was looking for something different to make for New Years and I hit upon the idea of making Beef Wellington. Just as I did with the cook, I’ll divide this blog entry into two parts: One covering Day 1 and one covering DAY 2. Read More...